Clearly
some scientists are witty jerks, but occasionally fields collide to produce
some great and worth-while research. A perfect example comes from the work of
Christina Semeniuk who, using her research as an excuse to visit the Cayman
Islands (and who could blame her?), made it her mission to save a fever of
stingrays (yes, a group of stingrays is called a fever) from the tourists who
loved them too much.

Stingray
City is a series of sandbars off the coast of Grand Cayman Island that is
densely populated by marine life, including stingrays. The water is crystal
clear, the sun is nearly always shining, and every year tourists jump at the
chance to disembark from cruise ships and plunge into the water for a unique
wildlife encounter. Anyone who has ever fed a stray cat can see the potential
problem with this. The stingrays quickly pick up on the fact that if they
tolerate being poked by a fat guy in a Hawaiian shirt for a few minutes, they
get a free meal.

Dr.
Semeniuk wanted to understand what kind of damage an influx of tourists could
cause and use that information to come up with a solution. First she used her
natural science savvy to tackle the question of what effect the tourists were
having on the rays. Her research revealed what you might expect. The rays were not
only dangerously habituated to people, they were obese. Compared to a fever
that had never seen a Hawaiian shirt, the Stingray City group was a pretty
unhealthy lot. They even had an estimated death rate due to boat-collisions
that is a little beyond what could be considered sensible.

So
what to do? A major problem with wildlife tourism is that, on the face of it,
it is a lot better than exploiting nature. At least stingrays weren’t on the
menu at the nearby resorts, right? Not necessarily. Unhealthy animals leads to
an unhealthy ecosystem and whether the cause is an oil spill or a Steve Irwin
wannabe, an unhealthy ecosystem needs to be taken care of.

With
that in mind, Dr. Semeniuk ventured into foreign territory for a marine
biologist. She picked up her clipboard, wrote herself a survey, and tackled
some social science. She asked the people who visited Stingray City if they
would come back after an overhaul of the attraction’s rules. She presented them
with different options and got them to select the ones they would visit. Some
options had tonnes of rays, others not so many. In some scenarios they could
touch and feed the rays, in others they watched from a distance.

She
fed her data into a computer model that predicted each scenario’s impact both on
the stingray population and the tourists’ willingness to continue visiting the
attraction, and took her results to the people in charge.
Since then, scientists and managers have been tweaking the rules governing
tourists’ interactions with stingrays, to the benefit of the island’s economy
AND it’s ecosystem.

The beauty of this research is that it contains
a lesson we can all appreciate. Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort
zone. Go the extra mile. Learn everything you can. In the end, you will feel
like a superstar and you can potentially make a lasting difference in the
world.

Special thanks to Dr. Christina Semeniuk with her co-operation in preparing this article! If you thought her research was as cool as we did, check out her lab's website here!

Sketchy Science is a weekly blog written by Steve Kux and illustrated by Geoff Lee. Sketchy Science articles relating to sustainability and conservation are published in partnership with The Starfish .